Positive Real Estate Professionals

Links to your site from other sites are an important indicator in the eyes of many search engines of the popularity of a site. If your site has hundreds or thousands of pages that link to it this can be an important factor in high placement in search engine results. With that said there are numerous caveats when it comes to linking.

Sites that are relevant to yours who link to you carry more weight than some random site. I appreciate an incoming link from my sister Kristi’s blog although it is more of a personal observations/journal type blog. Because of the nature of her blog, it has little relevance to real estate so it doesn’t carry as much weight as say a link from The Mortgage And More Blog which is directly related to the real estate industry. With that said, I am happy to have most incoming links and in the end I have only the illusion of control over those who link to me.

Here are some do’s:

• 

  While one way links do carry a bit more weight than reciprocal links do not discount the benefit of reciprocal links. In many instances a bu siness partner who you want to link to you will agree to do so if you link to them. This is a perfectly appropriate example of reciprocal linking. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by turning away a relevant reciprocal link because it isn’t a one way link!

• Link to yourself from all of the social medias you participate in. Most of the social media systems have some method that will allow you to link to your website from that system. These are FREE and easy links!
• Use the comment section in blogs that you frequent to build links. With this said there are two things that you should look for when commenting to be assured that your link will achieve maximum benefit. First you want to make sure that where you are commenting has a place for you to put your website’s URL. This is the only way a link can be generated from the comment section. Second you want to right click on the linked name of a previous commentor and look at the properties. This will let you see if the links that are generated in the comment section are ‘no follow’ or ‘do follow’. There is a bit of controversy as to whether ‘no follow’ links are beneficial. I believe that ‘no follow’ links may have some benefit as a link while the site’s Google juice provides no benefit to your site. Here are several posts on this very topic:

Using Comments to Build Links and Drive Traffic – Part 1

Using Comments to Build Links and Drive Traffic – Part 2

Do Follow v. No Follow

Here are some don’ts:

• Don’t participate in any type of link farming. Link farming is basically using ‘dummy’ domains to generate links to your site with the hope of increasing its popularity in the eyes of the search engines. This is considered a ‘black hat’ tactic and though it can be quite successful in creating links, search engines have developed algorithms to detect this type of deception. If detected the penalty can be quite severe and may result in your site be dropped to the bottom of search results for a specified period of time. Here is a great article with an with an explanatory video of what link farming is:

Link Farming is just another form of Spam

• Don’t fall for the promises of getting thousands of links to your site in a matter of days or hours. While the methods of generating these types of links can vary, many employ link farming or require a link exchange with a third party site. A link exchange may not sound like a bad idea but in many instances you have little to no control over the type of site you will be asked to link to. Thankfully many of these link exchanges do allow you to exclude pornographic sites but you may still be required to link to sites that are ideologically opposite or otherwise offensive to you. *NOTE: This is not the same as submitting your site to FREE directories like Open Directory Project.*
• Don’t pay for links; there is no reason to. Ask your business associates and partners that you deal with who have websites to link to your site. Not only will this allow visitors to your business partners’ sites to visit your site easily, it creates a FREE link. If you are going to pay for a link, I really believe it should be as part of an integrated marketing strategy that utilizes some type of pay per click or pay per impression system, along with your website, your blog, and various social media. *NOTE: Paying for links is different from submitting your site to paid directories like Yahoo! Directory, About.com, and Business.com. In my opinion however, if your site is properly optimized you will get all the juice you need without paying to be in directories.*
  

Positive Real Estate Professionals (PREP) can help you achieve the recognition you and your business deserve through our highly versatile and search engine optimized member websites, lead capture, and visitor friendly layout. If you are a professional who works in the real estate industry or one of the related fields that service the needs of the real estate industry then this real estate network can be just what you need to take your business to the next level. If you have questions or would like to join CLICK HERE.